Quote Originally Posted by 89Vette View Post
Seriously, I don't remember any arguments (with you recently) or participating in any OTHER "debates non-related to VX ownership" FOR YEARS. Between others, arguments cause me to "gloss over reading entire posts". I agree with your plea for civility/decorum and avoid confrontation. (I just disagreed with WHERE to post the suggestion). Furthermore, I agree needless confrontation is unproductive, lacks value, and tends to drive readers away.
The "discussion" I was referring to regarding how the clique here at the time was labeling current and new members "freeloaders", "deadbeats", etc while simultaneously (and ironically) lobbying-for/promoting monetary site-donations occurred awhile back.

I had simply questioned how someone new to the site at the time asking for specific information about a VX being met with "Use the search function, that'll be $20" was as productive, welcoming, or conducive to recruiting new monetary and informational contributors to the site as they apparently believed it was. Of course, after having it pointed out like that, the members in question THEN started actually answering the questions WHILE suggesting the search function and asking for site donations, but that's not what was happening beforehand. And I understand how you may not remember participating at that time, but I wouldn't call jumping on the bandwagon to take a few pot shots at me because it was easy to do when so many others were doing it participating anyway, but I've learned to ignore it so no big deal, especially since it's been made obvious once again in this thread that it's somewhat knee-jerk with some people even though they weren't even here at the time.

But the push-back was simply another ironic part of that entire fiasco. There I was "pissing so many people off" by suggesting that name-calling by a mob-like group of forum members was not necessarily the best way of achieving the monetary site donation goal they were promoting...or...the appearance that the site was ACTUALLY as welcoming as some had convinced themselves that it was.....and yet it's obvious that at least one of the members who was practically living on the site and doing those things on a daily basis is STILL of the opinion they were doing nothing to be called out on as questionable.

So, when logic failed and it seemed as if $$$ was all that some understood, I tried approaching the matter from another objective and more democratic direction by suggesting that site donation could be pro-rated directly proportionally to site participation based on post count. After all, why would it be fair for someone who posted maybe once or twice a week to be expected to pay the same amount to participate on the site as someone who posted 10 or 20 times a DAY? When viewed that way, the once or twice a week poster would basically be subsidizing the habits of the 10 or 20 times a day poster. Well I'll give you three guesses as to how that suggestion was met with the main site dwellers....and the first two guesses don't count.

After that, it became a condescending free-for-all from the clique so what else could a reasonable person be expected to do except just sit back, ignore it, and let that kind of forum mentality take the site where it would....and the rest as they say...is history.

Not knowing what happened to the How-To information that used to be accessible on the site, it's impossible to comment on its fate, but the possibility that it's still archived somewhere would be best case scenario for those who may need such information.